


I Think She Looks Beautiful

by scribefindegil



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pancakes, Self-Esteem, The Power Of Mabel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7754701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribefindegil/pseuds/scribefindegil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mabel's on a mission, one even more important than pancakes: to apologize for setting Lazy Susan up with her Grunkle and convince the waitress that she looks beautiful just the way she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Think She Looks Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> I always loved how passionately Mabel and Wendy defended Lazy Susan's appearance in Society of the Blind Eye and wondered if there was a story behind it. So here's a story.

 

“I’ll show you how a real man stirs his coffee! WITH HIS THUMB! Wouldn’t be caught dead using one of those sissy spoons!”

The three younger Corduroys erupted into cheers. Wendy took advantage of the noise to hide her groan. Sure, she _could_ stir hot beverages with her fingers without getting burned, but what was the point? The cutlery vendetta was getting out of hand. If it went on for much longer she was going to have to start sneaking forks and spoons home from the Mystery Shack. Wouldn’t that be fun to explain if she got caught? “Sorry, Stan, I have to abscond with all your silverware because my Dad decided that having anything besides knives and cast-iron in the kitchen meant we were getting too soft.”

At least Greasy’s had forks. Plus there were higher ceilings than at home, and fewer axes. And, most importantly, pancakes.

Her family had distracted her long enough for the syrup she’d poured over the stack to soak through them. She skewered a piece on, yes, her fork, deal with it Dad, and raised it to her lips.

Ahh. Bliss. Not even her brothers’ chanting and her father’s rants could ruin pancakes. Wendy leaned back in the booth, chewing happily.

At that moment, the door of the diner swung open and there was a loud boom. When the dust settled—it seemed, Wendy noted, to be unusually colorful dust—the figure at the door resolved into the shape of Mabel Pines. Her hair was full of confetti, and she was coughing and fanning away the smoke that surrounded her.

Wendy licked the syrup off her fork and stuck it into her pocket for safekeeping before she scooted out of the booth and headed towards the front of the diner.

“Hi, Wendy!” Mabel coughed.

“Hey buddy. What’s up?”

Mabel smacked her chest, finally getting her coughing fit under control. “I think my dramatic entrance needs more work,” she said.

Wendy shrugged, helping her friend to an empty booth. “You sure got the dramatic part down. What was that?”

“Soos helped me rig up some confetti poppers to one of Grunkle Stan’s smoke bombs,” Mabel explained. “I think I underestimated the smoke factor.”

“Yeah, dude, you gotta watch it with those things. Stan’s stuff is all old and creepy. Whatcha need the dramatic entrance for, anyway? Pancake quest?”

Mabel shook her head grimly. “This mission is more important than pancakes!”

Oh dear. “New boy?” Wendy reached behind her to her family’s booth. Whatever Mabel thought of the importance of pancakes, Wendy wasn’t going to let hers go to waste. “I haven’t seen anyone in here who looks like your type.”

Mabel shook her head. “No, not that either.” She flopped dramatically sideways into the booth. Wendy did her best to tune out the sounds of raucous chanting and inevitable property damage coming from behind her and focus on Mabel instead.

“So what’s up?”

Mabel sighed. “Oh, Wendy. I was just trying to make everyone happy with the power of matchmaking! But this match was definitely not made in heaven; I know Grunkle Stan can be a jerk sometimes, but he was so mean! And after she’d dressed up and left all those nice messages from her cats, too!”

"Wait,” said Wendy. “Hold up. Are you talking about Lazy Susan? I know you were trying to do that transformation montage business, but I thought it kind of fizzled when you realized that the depths of your uncle's grossness were too much even for you."

Mabel groaned and sunk even further into the booth. If she went much further she was going to slide entirely out of her sweater—today's was especially elaborate, with a tessellating pattern of blue and purple cats.

“Yeah, but then I realized that maybe he didn’t _need_ the transformation montage because if Lazy Susan keeps trying to fix the broken pie trolley maybe she’d like trying to fix a gross old man! And she gave him her phone number and I was so excited but then he kept saying he was going to call but he didn’t, and then she called him and had all her cats say hi, and I thought that was gonna clinch it, but he still wouldn’t call her back!”

“Astonishing,” Wendy mumbled around a mouthful of pancakes. She’d heard at least one of those messages. Mabel was very . . . optimistic if she thought it was going to change Stan’s mind. But Mabel was very optimistic all of the time, and frankly it was pretty refreshing, surrounded as Wendy was by teenage cynicism.

“Okay, okay,” Mabel continued. “But then when we went into his mind to stop Gideon and that creepy triangle guy, I found out that they _did_ actually go on a date but he ran away partway through! I need to apologize to her, but we’ve been so busy trying to get the Shack back and not get destroyed by a giant evil robot and a tiny evil psychic that I haven’t had any time!”

She finished her whirlwind explanation, breathing heavily.

“You gotta chill, dude,” said Wendy. “I’m sure Lazy Susan’s faced plenty of rejection before. Also, fill me in on this eavesdropping-on-Stan’s-memories biz. Any good blackmail material?”

Mabel shook her head.

"And what can I get you ladies?"

As if by magic (it probably wasn’t by magic, although you never knew in this town), the object of their conversation appeared with a grin and a notepad. Mabel shot upright in her seat and turned to look at the waitress with wide eyes.

"Lazy Susan! May I just say that you are looking especially lovely today?"

Susan chuckled. "You can say whatever you want, hon."

"No, really!" Mabel insisted. "You're always so stylish!"

Wendy glanced between Mabel's open, earnest face and Susan's surprised one. To Wendy, the waitress looked the same as ever: the wrinkles in her face only kept at bay by its plumpness, her makeup heavy and inexpertly blended, her long clawlike acrylic nails beginning to grow out. Her hair was unnaturally stiff from what must have been gallons of hairspray, and her clothes were covered in grease stains.

Susan dropped the menus in front of them and walked away shaking her head.

"Why won't she listen to me?" Mabel demanded. "Why is it always so hard to get people to listen when I tell them they're beautiful?"

"I mean," Wendy hazarded, "Maybe because not all of them are?"

Mabel pounded on the table with one fist. "Lies! Lies and slander! I mean, look at her!"

Wendy obliged. "Yeah, I have been. It's not the prettiest sight."

Mabel gasped dramatically. "Wendy Blerble Corduroy, you shut your mouth!"

Wendy had to chuckle at the younger girl's indignation, and at hearing the fake middle name she'd come up with when Robbie was pestering Dipper about what his "real name" was said in such a dramatic tone.

Mabel leapt across the table, taking Wendy's face in her hands and turning it to follow Susan as the waitress made her rounds.

"How can you say she isn’t beautiful?” she asked plaintively.

“You think everyone’s beautiful!” said Wendy, somewhat indistinctly since her cheeks were being squished.

“Well, they are!”

Mabel turned Wendy’s face towards her own. Her eyes were wide as saucers. “Wendy,” she said, “You know that you’re beautiful, right?”

“Um,” said Wendy. “I guess?” It wasn’t exactly a word she’d use. Sure, she’d grown into her height and didn’t look like a gosling on stilts anymore, and her hair was pretty good, but ‘beautiful?’ Nah. Only people on TV were beautiful.

And mom. Her mom had been beautiful. But that wasn’t a thought she was going to have right now, not when she was in public. She excavated her head from Mabel’s grip and shoveled pancakes into her mouth, grateful for the distracting power of sugar.

Her mouth was still full when Lazy Susan returned to ask Mabel for her order, but before she could say anything Mabel threw the menu down to the tabletop and burst out, "Lazy Susan, I am so so sorry I tried to set you up with my Grunkle. I knew he was gross and old, but I didn't know he was that gross!"

Susan shrugged as she filled their water glasses, waving one hand dismissively. "Ah, don't worry about it. When you get to be my age, with my looks . . . you learn to get used to it. You were probably right about those lower standards."

"NO!" Mabel yelled, jumping up in her seat. "I was so, so wrong! Lazy Susan, you deserve someone who appreciates getting calls from your cats and understands how beautiful you really are! You work all day but you still do your hair and your nails, and your makeup is so good! When I do eyeshadow you can barely even see it, but your eye shows it off so well! And you have such a nice smile! And I know you dressed up for your date so you looked even more beautiful, and no one should have someone be mean to them after they've dressed up!"

Susan eyed her suspiciously. "Did that silly man tell you about that? That doesn’t sound like him."

"Well he did!" said Mabel, in a tone she probably thought wasn’t suspicious. "I definitely didn't find out about it by looking into his memory rooms when we had to chase a dream demon into his mind! Who said that! Not me!"

It went over better than Wendy had expected; some combination of Gravity Falls weirdness and Mabel weirdness made people take whatever she said in stride.

“Hmm,” said Susan. “You’re a very sweet girl. It’s been a long time since anyone was this nice to me. Normally they just say, ‘Hey, you!’ or ‘Why’s the coffee taking so long, one-eye?’ It’s nice to be appreciated.”

Mabel nodded so enthusiastically she looked like a bobblehead. “Ooh! Is there anyone you like? I know the last date I set you up on was, ha, kind of a total disaster, but I promise, I’ll do anything I can to make the next one perfect!”

Susan laughed, loudly and warmly. “Oh, don’t you go worrying about me! I’m happy with the cats.”

“Well, yeah!” Mabel replied. “Who wouldn’t be! But tell me if you change your mind! There’s still a chance for Mabel’s matchmaking to work it’s magic! No lowering standards this time! They’re gonna blow your standards out of the water!”

Susuan walked away, laughing and shaking her head.

She returned a few moments later and set a towering plate of pancakes in front of them. "On the house!" she said. And then she grinned, and Wendy, who was used to Customer Service grins even if she never had the energy to put one on herself, could tell that it was genuine. Susan pulled up the lid of her bad eye. It looked bluer than it had been a moment ago. "Wink!"

Mabel mirrored the gesture. "Wink!"

As Susan walked away, Mabel dug into her plate of pancakes with a contented hum. Wendy kept on eye on the waitress as she made her rounds, and noticed that now, even when she turned away from a table and didn't have to keep a grin plastered on for the customers, she was smiling. Wendy still wasn’t sure she’d call it ‘beautiful,’ but it was close.


End file.
